Two broads abroad: Letchworth storms Normandy

I spent a leisurely morning, stretched out in my comfortable bed, catching up on my correspondence as my two room-mates scurried about. Idiots, I thought disdainfully to myself as they hurried out the door, lugging their cumbersome luggage down fifty flights of stairs. "Uh...Amy? You do know that we're suppose to be ready for the bus in fifteen minutes, don't you," asked Melody quietly, watching as my eyes popped out of my head in shock and I catapulted from my bed to race into the bathroom. Wondering where I was, Sydney soon appeared and flew into action as I shrieked at her to throw everything into my suitcase. "Were you sleeping," Syd asked incredulously as I hopped around the room on one leg, pulling on my pants. "No," I growled, frustrated, "apparently I've lived in Rapunzel's tower so long that I've started to actually believe I'm a princess." We hurried down the narrow stairs, Sydney manhandling the suitcase around the sharp corners. I breathed a sigh of relief as we boarded the bus in the nick of time and I felt tons better as, several minutes later, a few of my friends had to make the walk of shame down the bus aisle. "Oooo la-la..." their fellow passengers intoned darkly as we finally departed for the day.

After another round of customs, where I apparently appear completely harmless unlike my patient friend, Alicia who was practically molested, we transferred to the Eurostar. "I can't wait to see the fish," Sydney exclaimed giddily, unaware of the confused look crossing her teacher's face. "Sydney, what do you think the Chunnel is going to be like," Lauren asked. "Isn't it like a glass tube?" Sydney asked. "It's not an aquarium, Sydney," she laughed, "Arial won't be swimming up to see you."

Familiar with the snack trolley on the Hogwart's Express, Sydney and I waited expectantly for its arrival until we learned there was a food service car.  We stumbled through the train and joined the "que." "I'm going to order a croissant," I announced to everyone around me who were obviously fascinated by my choice. Hearing a rumor that her ham and cheese toastie was running low, Sydney hissed at her room-mate who stood in front of her in line, "Psst...Becky, order the ham and cheese toastie and I'll cut you." To impress the server, I whipped out some foreign language skills, "I'll have uno croissant, s'il vous plait." "Mom, uno is Spanish for one," Sydney corrected. "Sorry, madam, there are no more croissants," the woman said regretfully as I collapsed on the counter before scanning the crowd to see if Becky had stolen the last croissant in order to take my revenge.

My luggage almost went on a tour of Europe without me as it had been moved from the rest of the suitcases on the train. Distraught over my lost mini-Pepsis and bag of Mounds bars, I was, nonetheless, resigned to live the remainder of the trip on one pair of underwear. Lauren's husband, Dana however, gallantly dove back on to search frantically while Lauren waved her arms on the platform yelling, "Hold the train!" My suitcase packed with snacks successfully retrieved, we were again rolling on our way. The females of our group enacted a coup at the potties, taking over the men's room to handle the "overflow." Syd's doppelganger, Renae cautiously took her turn in the men's room and we got the giggles awaiting her reaction as a male passenger approached her locked door. Shamefaced, she shuffled by him as we all laughed hysterically. Turns out that they not only look alike, they also think alike as Renae later confessed her disappointment over not having seen fish in the Chunnel.

Our bus pit-stop at a gas station was the site of my and Syd's first mother-daughter altercation as we waited in line for the bakery (Yes, at a gas station). Unbeknownst to me, Syd was concentrating on verbalizing her order in French while I was busy oogling the tasty selections. We approached the counter and Syd was ordering me a croissant in French when I suddenly interrupted. "Non!" I shouted, "un pain de chocolate?" I gestured to a rectangular croissant-y looking bread with chocolate filling. "Two?" the server asked. "Oui," Sydney confirmed, glaring at me. We walked out with our treasure and she exploded, "Now I know how Dad feels!" "What?" I asked, baffled, "Why didn't you just order what you wanted?" She stopped in the parking lot and shouted at me, "I knew exactly what to say and then you bursted out with your ridiculous order and then gave her your cheeky bird-clicky noise." After gobbling up my tasty treat, I apologized for the next twenty miles.

Normandy was rough. First I took an academic hit because apparently, I missed the main point of the assault. I mean, yeah, the big, over-all goal was to defeat Hitler, but the reason behind D-Day was to take the beaches to establish impressively-engineered harbors to unload the thousands and thousands of men, vehicles and equipment necessary to achieve said big goal. "Where was I when this had been explained to me in high school," I wondered, "Was that the week I was addicted to Marlboro Menthol cigarettes?" They had purposely sunk seventeen ships, hauled harbor-construction apparatuses across the ocean, and set up a giant floating dock capable of handling tons of tanks to allow a steady stream of land forces to, again, achieve the big goal. It was quite a blow to my scholarly self-esteem.

The American Cemetery assaulted our emotions. Arlington can be a bit difficult to take in but this was worse as I looked at grave after grave recording back-to-back dates. 1944...1944...1944...1944...I watched waves of white crosses, realizing that they'd died within days, hours and minutes of one another. Over 9,000 of them.

There was a lot of walking (and in Alicia's case, one memorable bout of falling as she flopped off a sidewalk curve, folding like a cheap umbrella and then leaping up like a gymnast who had just stuck her landing). Omaha Beach. Utah Beach. Gun remnants that had a range of eleven miles. Claustrophobic bunkers.  Great divots out of the earth where a shell, several shells, hundreds of shells had fallen. Comfort seeing my flag on foreign soil. Pride watching it lowered, folded, and layed to rest. Gratitude to those who remained behind.

Emotionally exhausted, we made our way to our hotel for the night. Again, Monica, Melody and I faced an impressive number of stairs and again, we rose to the challenge. Panting for breath, I sat on the bed (as the room was so stuffed, there was no actual floor room) to inspect the safety features. Apparently, in the event of a fire, those of us confined to the top level are instructed to cram a towel beneath the door, open the window and scream for help. I wondered if we should run a drill but it took so long to figure out how to turn on the lights (room card inserted) that we discarded the idea.

Waiting for seating for dinner in the vacant hotel lobby, the outdoor video monitoring system flashed on and we saw our friend, Julian, stranded outside. I looked around to see if I was being watched (as, ironically, I watched Julian) and then pushed the button to speak to him. "Why are you by yourself, Julian," I barked at him. "I can't get in," he complained, peering too closely into the camera, "I have permission. What do I do?"
"Stand on one foot," I instructed helpfully before rattling off the entry code and watching him disappear into the building.

Dinner...yay. It had been so long since I'd heard that glorious word on this Coke-loving continent that I almost missed it. "Amy," Monica poked me, "didn't you hear him? He said Pepsi." Would my weeping never end? Tears of joy swept down my face as I ordered el grande Pepsi. Also happy to get a Pepsi, Sydney didn't bother to correct my "French." Crepes and creme brulee later, I was ready to master the stairs to head to bed. Tomorrow...Paris.